A verdict was handed down Monday<\/a>\u00a0in the beating death of Robert Brooks,\u00a0who was killed while incarcerated at Marcy Correctional Facility last December. The Oneida County jury found David Kingsley guilty of second-degree murder and first-degree manslaughter charges, and acquitted Mathew Galliher and Nicholas Kieffer of murder, manslaughter and second-degree gang assault. Kieffer was also found not guilty of offering a false instrument for filing.<\/p>\nWith less than two weeks until Election Day, developments in that case, and the aftermath of the wildcat strike earlier this year, are expected to play a pivotal role in the outcome of the tight race.<\/p>\n
“The overwhelming thing I\u2019m hearing is people want change, and that\u2019s across the board,” said Republican candidate Brent Davison,\u00a0a retired State Police major and troop commander.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s Republicans, Democrats, undecideds, others\u2026 People want change,” he added.<\/p>\n
New York prisons are short 4,500 correction officers after thousands participated in a wildcat strike in February and March. The illegal strike started the same day correction officers were charged in connection with Brooks\u2019 death.<\/p>\n
Prison safety is at top of mind for North Country voters as they decide who to elect to the 115th Assembly District.<\/p>\n
Davison said he\u2019ll fight to repeal the HALT Act that limited the use of solitary confinement.<\/p>\n
“I want to go down there and bring a common-sense, strong voice to Albany,” said Davison, a lifelong resident of the district.<\/p>\n
Albany lawmakers continue to clash on party lines about prison staffing, officer misconduct and the HALT Act’s impact on safety.<\/p>\n
But Democratic candidate Michael Cashman said he also supports a full repeal of the policy.<\/p>\n
“We need to get the National Guard out of the prisons \u2014 they do not belong there,” he told Spectrum News 1. “And that’s an example of while I may be a Democrat, I will push back on my fellow Democrats.”<\/p>\n
Both candidates have knocked on thousands of doors throughout the district to appeal to all voters.<\/p>\n
The last two lawmakers to hold the seat \u2014 Jones, a Democrat, and Janet Duprey, a former Republican who held the seat from 2007 to 2016 \u2014 have endorsed Cashman, who’s been the Plattsburgh town supervisor for the last decade.<\/p>\n
Duprey said he\u2019s an effective local leader who works with all political parties, and he\u2019s ready to continue that work in Albany.<\/p>\n
“As the town supervisor, he has delivered a decade of balanced budgets, strategic infrastructure investments and transparency,” she said. “He has redefined local governance.”<\/p>\n
But rural residents in the North Country are also focused on affordability, telling candidates they’re struggling with higher costs, and need relief from Albany.<\/p>\n
Davison, a U.S. Army veteran, said he’ll fight to lower costs and roll back some of the state’s expensive clean energy mandates, like for electric buses, that don’t work in the North Country.<\/p>\n
“We do not have the grid to support it, because of the weather, it’s just not going to work up here,” he argued.<\/p>\n
His push for change is why Lorraine Torgesen, a member of the Clinton County Republican Committee, said Davison has her vote.<\/p>\n
“I think he\u2019s not shy,” she said. “He\u2019ll stand up for us and he won\u2019t be backing down to any of the opposition voices down there.”<\/p>\n
The 115th District has close to the same number of registered Democrats, Republicans and independent voters \u2014 meaning candidates must connect with people who don\u2019t identify with any party to get to Albany next year.<\/p>\n
And Cashman said he’ll be a strong voice for affordable housing and support for Northern New Yorkers if he gets there.<\/p>\n
“I will be part of the majority, and there’s a huge difference between being a person in the room versus somebody knocking at the door, and that’s what my opponent will be doing,” Cashman said.<\/p>\n
Davison said he’s skeptical of Cashman’s opposition to the HALT Act, and that he hasn’t been a loud critic of the law that changed the state’s solitary confinement rules until trying to woo voters.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cashman said he’s\u00a0been against the policy ever since lawmakers passed it in 2021, and that he never would have voted for it.<\/p>\n
The special election takes place Nov. 4. Early voting runs from Oct. 25 to Nov. 2.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lasting tension over violence in state prisons and a shortage of correction officers is hanging over independent voters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[109,116,111,427,9,11,10,49,51,50,12,112,87,3476,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-15628","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-app-local-state-politics","9":"tag-app-ny-state-of-politics","10":"tag-decision-2025","11":"tag-kate-lisa","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-headlines","14":"tag-new-york-news","15":"tag-new-york-state","16":"tag-new-york-state-headlines","17":"tag-new-york-state-news","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-ny-state-of-politics","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-state-assembly","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}